1. Technical Field Text
The present invention relates to a specimen transporter capable of performing transportation of specimen plates to a specimen imaging apparatus and collecting of imaged specimen plates from the specimen imaging apparatus, and a specimen imaging system equipped with the same.
2. Background Information
An imaging apparatus for imaging a specimen, which is prepared by smearing a sample such as blood on a slide glass and performing staining processing, and the like, with a microscope and a camera is conventionally known. An image imaged by the imaging apparatus is used for automatic cell classification, and manual cell classification by an operator.
In this type of specimen imaging apparatus, the supplied specimen is automatically transported to the microscope, and automatically collected to a predetermined collecting location after being performed with imaging by the camera. For example, in the specimen imaging apparatus disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/304722, after a magazine stored with a specimen is installed in a cavity, a handling device grips the specimen and takes out the specimen from the magazine, and then transports the specimen to an optical system including the microscope, and the like. The specimen, which image is imaged in the optical system, is again returned to the magazine by the handling device.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2008/201082 discloses a specimen image imaging system capable of carrying out a series of operations from preparing to analyzing the specimens. Specifically, the specimen image imaging system prepares a specimen of blood with the specimen preparing apparatus, transports the specimen to a specimen imaging apparatus (blood image analyzer) with a specimen transporter, images the specimen in the specimen imaging apparatus, and thereafter collects the specimen in a predetermined magazine. In such specimen image imaging system, the collecting of the specimen to the magazine is carried out in the specimen imaging apparatus.
The specimen imaging apparatuses described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/304722 and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2008/201082 both interiorly include a mechanism for collecting the imaged specimen in the magazine.
Such specimen imaging apparatus is required to have a configuration of simply discharging the imaged specimen to the outside for miniaturization, simplification, and the like, and the subsequent collecting of the specimen is to be left to the external device.
However, when incorporating the specimen imaging apparatus that does not have a function of collecting specimens in the specimen imaging system, a device for storing the specimen in the magazine needs to be newly added, which increases the number of devices in the system as a whole and may possibly increase the system scale.